Hi guys. I have been here for a week or so but just noticed the introduction forum.

I am new to Buddhism but have found it to be a spring of refreshing water after wandering the deserts of religion for a very long time. Years of Christianity, then gnosticism, then paganism, then Christianity, then gnosticism, etc, etc left me a bit jaded on God and spirituality as a whole. This passage from the psalms is pretty much how i felt, 'as a stag longs for a stream, so my heart longs for you O God'.

My last go around with gnosticism lead me to try meditation again as many gnostics do this. I had tried it before without much luck. This time I decided to read some books on Buddhism as they seemed to know a lot about meditation. I read Zen Mind, Beginners Mind and I haven't looked back.

The practice of zazen has really helped me. The Zen idea about 'just sit and do zazen' is incredibly refreshing to a mind that can't seem to grasp onto anything anymore. At this point I am sick of scriptures(not saying there is anything wrong with scriptures, but that's been my focus in other religions, i do hope to study Buddhist scripture eventually), so the Zen tradition is very appealing to me as I do zazen and ponder the noble truths and precepts and try to walk the 8-fold path. As I look deeper into Buddhism I find it's view on the world, life and death makes sense to a mind that had trouble aligning other religions teachings to something I could grasp.

I look forward to learning more from the folks on this forum. From my few days already on here you have been very helpful and I than you for that!